Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!sci34hub!gary
From: gary@sci34hub.UUCP (Gary Heston)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: Re: Citing .signatures (was Re: new Pink Floyd newsgroup)
Message-ID: <514@sci34hub.UUCP>
Date: 30 Dec 89 02:29:36 GMT
References: <423@mirsa.UUCP> <475@sci34hub.UUCP> <89346.135842TAR@MAINE.BITNET> <631@grape3.UUCP>
Lines: 44

In article <631@grape3.UUCP>, king@cell.mot.COM (Steven King) writes:
> In article <`!D+R-@rpi.edu> tale@cs.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) writes:
> >[ ... ] Why do people quote .signatures in follow-
> >ups when they are not making any comment regarding them?  [ ... ]

When quoting things, it might be appropriate to attribute the quote a
little better than the followed-up followed-up articles' id string.
A newsreader might want to mail a question to someone regarding a
statement in a posting, without burning bandwith by posting. I would
agree that keeping multiple complete .sigs in a followup is not
appropriate. Altering a comment or quote to change the meaning, without
flagging the change as having been made by the follower-uper, is not
(in my opinion) appropriate at all.

> You got me scratchin', Dave.  I honestly think including someone else's
> .signature file in your post is out of line.  Then again, I think that the
> quoting features of the various mail readers are far overused in the first 
> place.

Enough to identify the poster, which is easiest if everyone has their
name and email address on one line, somewhere in there (which poses
a slight problem in your case, if I want to attribute your remarks
without completely rewriting your .sig :-) ). As far as the 15-line
character graphics, flip sayings, SnailMail addresses, company or
school affiliation, etc., those can be trashed. What's left, though
should either be as it was posted, or marked to show the changes and
changer.

Quoting is overused. I know. I just got tired of a minor flamefest
with someone who liked to include lots of stuff, and objected in
one case to me deleting my own words from a follow-up to one of
my prior postings. But it was ok for him to make unattributed
alterations, my objections to which (I think) triggered Dave to
ask this question.

[ left part of .sig trimmed ] 
> | Steve King  (708) 991-8056
> |   ...uunet!motcid!king
> |   ...ddsw1!palnet!stevek

-- 
    Gary Heston     { uunet!sci34hub!gary  }    System Mismanager
   SCI Technology, Inc.  OEM Products Department  (i.e., computers)
      Hestons' First Law: I qualify virtually everything I say.